Just Giving to axe fees for disaster donations
Action after Mail investigation
FUNDRAISING website JustGiving will today announce it will stop taking a cut of some donations following a Daily Mail investigation and criticism by politicians.
The website, which is used by Britons to give more than £400million a year to charities, takes a cut of more than 6 per cent from almost all donations.
While much of the money is spent on running the site and removing fraudulent appeals, one director was paid almost £200,000 in 2016.
Last month Neil Coyle, Labour MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, said he had been sickened to learn that JustGiving had taken £500,000 pledged for the victims of major incidents such as the London Bridge attack, Manchester Arena bombing and the Grenfell fire.
Now the website will no longer charge what it calls a ‘platform fee’ for donations in response to terrorist incidents or major disasters in this country.
It has also scrapped the charges for crowd-funding appeals which allow individuals and communities to raise money for personal causes.
Announcing the move, the site’s president, Jerry Needel, said: ‘These changes mean our users can raise money for personal causes, using our world-class technology, all without paying a platform fee.
‘Following feedback from our amazing community of fundraisers, we are also announcing that JustGiving will now be free to use following major incidents, including acts of terrorism, catastrophes or natural disasters.’
Some charity bosses had accused JustGiving of ‘greed’, saying the fees were ‘hard to stomach’.
JustGiving officially says it takes 5 per cent from donations. But the percentage is calculated after including a Gift Aid tax rebate, so the cut works out as more than 6 per cent.
Last year a Daily Mail investigation revealed how JustGiving was taking £20million a year from donations, half of it spent on staff costs.
Employees took home an average salary of more than £60,000.
Some of the money is spent keeping the site working 24 hours a day and finding innovative ways of raising more for good causes, as well as closing down fraudulent appeals.
The site’s 24million British users have donated a staggering £3.5billion for charitable and personal causes over the last 18 years.
Mr Coyle had called for JustGiving to be ‘compelled’ to return fees it had charged on donations for victims of Grenfell, London Bridge and the Manchester Arena bombing. But a JustGiving source said the changes would not apply retrospectively.
The removal of platform fees for crowdfunding starts immediately while changes for appeals relating to ‘major incidents’ will be introduced ‘in the coming weeks’.
A third party card processing fee will continue to be charged.
The move comes after Treasury ministers threatened a crackdown in the Budget aimed at banning fundraising firms from charging commission on the Gift Aid element of donations.